Air Force Joins the War on WikiLeaks and The New York Times

(Dec. 14) -- It's held off on using bombers for now, but the Air Force has stepped up its opposition to international media organization WikiLeaks.

It has reportedly blocked access to WikiLeaks and media websites such as The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel that originally published WikiLeaks documents. According to Reuters, an Air Force spokeswoman called the action "routine."

The Air Force is just the latest in a litany of high-profile enemies lining up against WikiLeaks. Visa, MasterCard and PayPal all cut their services to the whistle-blower group, effectively kneecapping its fundraising efforts, and Amazon booted it off its servers earlier in the month.

In addition, Columbia University warned faculty and staff against discussing WikiLeaks on social media, and the Pentagon blocked employee access to WikiLeaks documents -- though not to the websites that carry them.

It isn't just the big players who are moving against WikiLeaks, either -- bloggers, commentators and politicians alike have been calling for legal action against founder Julian Assange and the organization, but at the end of last month it appeared that a single hacker had actually taken down the site for a brief period.

But while Assange has acquired no shortage of enemies, he isn't without friends. Some journalists have defended WikiLeaks by comparing its massive dump of State Department cables to The New York Times' leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, and hackers supporting the organization reportedly attacked MasterCard and Visa in retaliation.

This week, a group of journalists, celebrities and filmmakers, including leftist firebrand Michael Moore, helped raise $380,000 for Assange's bail for charges of sexual misconduct in Sweden.

For it's part, The New York Times explained its decision to publish the leaked classified documents it was provided by WikiLeaks in an editorial:

... the more important reason to publish these articles is that the cables tell the unvarnished story of how the government makes its biggest decisions, the decisions that cost the country most heavily in lives and money. They shed light on the motivations -- and, in some cases, duplicity -- of allies on the receiving end of American courtship and foreign aid. They illuminate the diplomacy surrounding two current wars and several countries, like Pakistan and Yemen, where American military involvement is growing. As daunting as it is to publish such material over official objections, it would be presumptuous to conclude that Americans have no right to know what is being done in their name.

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